Google holds back Honeycomb source code indefinitely

Yesterday, Google revealed that they will be delaying the publication of the source code to their latest version of the Android operating system (3.0, codenamed Honeycomb) indefinitely… and it’s a move that is prompting a lot of questions about how committed Google really is to open software.

When Google first announced Android as an alternative to Apple’s new iOS mobile operating system, they painted Android in sharp relief against Apple’s “walled garden” approach: Android would avoid a “draconian future” in which one company controlled the mobile industry by keeping Android open, releasing the source code to developers and allowing users to download and install any programs from any source that they want.

Needless to say, this hasn’t panned out, and today, it’s hard to even get the most up-to-date version of Android onto your handset if your carrier isn’t willing to allow it, let alone install any programs you want on any device you want. However, Google has continued to publish the source code for Android, allowing anyone who wants to to take a look at the inner workings of the OS.

Now even that’s gone. According to Google’s Andy Rubin, it’s not permanent: the issue is that Honeycomb isn’t ready for mass consumption, and that Google cut corners to get Honeycomb onto tablets. They say they don’t even know if Honeycomb would run on a phone.

This groks with Google’s claims that Honeycomb is, for now, a tablet-only OS, while Gingerbread is for smartphones. It’s also worth noting that Apple also forked its tablet and smartphone variants of iOS up until iOS 4.1, which was released last September.

Even so, Google holding back the Android source code means that consumers owning Android tablets continue to be at the whim of manufacturers. If the Honeycomb source code were available, users might be able to bake their own versions of Honeycomb that would run on older devices — the Galaxy Tab, for example, or the Nook Color.

Speak Your Mind

John

This article is somewhat misleading… Isn’t the word “indefinite” a bit too strong? Most of the other blogs just quoted the original phrase “for the foreseeable future”.

Of course, “delay[ed] […] indefinitely” does not mean they’ll never release the source, but it does carry the connotation of hopelessness and that doesn’t exactly sound like the current iteration of Google to me. It is concerning, but only time will tell of course.